M is for Messy!

M is for Messy, and boy, did we make a mess!  I was really proud of Little Guy though, because he dove right in to this week's activities!

We started out the week getting used to letter M and the sound it makes.  Little Guy gets confused sometimes with N, and M, so we worked on identifying M. 

Little Guy also LOVES marshmallows, so I thought he could use marshmallows to make a letter M on construction paper.  I only had the giant marshmallows though, so he didn't exactly get the fine motor work I was hoping for, but it was still a fun activity. 

I think Little Guy's favorite part was stuffing a couple into his mouth!

I also found this recipe for making a moon painting.  It's equal parts elmer's glue and shaving cream.  I also added in a hint of grey/gray (I never can decide) paint.  I drew a circle on a piece of construction paper, and let Little Guy go to town filling in the circle to make his moon.

He started out painting the mixture on with a paintbrush.

Then, decided he'd try using his finger.

It pretty quickly became more about the shaving cream mixture and less about the moon...

I saw where this was headed, so we took off his shirt and dumped out the mixture.  I put a big squirt of plain shaving cream on the table and let Little Guy go to town!!  He LOVED it! 

It was definitely a great time!

We let Little Guy's moon dry overnight, and here's the finished product:

We also talked about our muscles this week.  The different types and how they work.  Little Guy's favorite part was when we went into the bathroom mirror and watched our pupils expand and contract when we turned the lights off and on!

Then, we played this fun little matching game from Little Guy's Grandparents.  You match a picture to the capital and lowercase letter it begins with.

We also broke out the Toy Story Memory game this week.


The books we read this week were:




"My 'M' Book"  by Jane Belk Moncure
(these books are awesome for little ones learning letter sounds)

"Long Night Moon" by Cynthia Rylant
(told about each months moon and what it was supposed to be for according to Native Americans.  I really liked it, and Little Guy loved naming who's birthday was in each month)

"You Can't Make a Move Without Your Muscles" by Paul Showers
(Awesome!  There were little activities for you to do to feel certain muscles move in your body.  I did have to skip through a couple of paragraphs to make sure it was flowing quickly enough for Little Guy.)

"Machines" by Anne and Harlow Rockwell
(Little Guy liked it despite the outdatedness (if that's a word) of it)